It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.

The impacts of EPA’s ruling will affect many families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 survey statistics, 2.4 million American housing units (12 percent of all homes) burned wood as their primary heating fuel, compared with 7 percent that depended upon fuel oil.

Local LOCM -0.3% governments in some states have gone even further than EPA, not only banning the sale of noncompliant stoves, but even their use as fireplaces. As a result, owners face fines for infractions. Puget Sound, Washington is one such location. Montréal, Canada proposes to eliminate all fireplaces within its city limits.

Only weeks after EPA enacted its new stove rules, attorneys general of seven states sued the agency to crack down on wood-burning water heaters as well. The lawsuit was filed by Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, all predominately Democrat states. Claiming that EPA’s new regulations didn’t go far enough to decrease particle pollution levels, the plaintiffs cited agency estimates that outdoor wood boilers will produce more than 20 percent of wood-burning emissions by 2017. A related suit was filed by the environmental group Earth Justice.

Did EPA require a motivational incentive to tighten its restrictions? Sure, about as much as Br’er Rabbit needed to persuade Br’er Fox to throw him into the briar patch. This is but another example of EPA and other government agencies working with activist environmental groups to sue and settle on claims that afford leverage to enact new regulations which they lack statutory authority to otherwise accomplish.

“Sue and settle “ practices, sometimes referred to as “friendly lawsuits”, are cozy deals through which far-left radical environmental groups file lawsuits against federal agencies wherein court-ordered “consent decrees” are issued based upon a prearranged settlement agreement they collaboratively craft together in advance behind closed doors. Then, rather than allowing the entire process to play out, the agency being sued settles the lawsuit by agreeing to move forward with the requested action both they and the litigants want.

And who pays for this litigation? All-too-often we taxpayers are put on the hook for legal fees of both colluding parties. According to a 2011 GAO report, this amounted to millions of dollars awarded to environmental organizations for EPA litigations between 1995 and 2010. Three “Big Green” groups received 41% of this payback, with Earthjustice accounting for 30 percent ($4,655,425). Two other organizations with histories of lobbying for regulations EPA wants while also receiving agency funding are the American Lung Association (ALA) and the Sierra Club.

In addition, the Department of Justice forked over at least $43 million of our money defending EPA in court between 1998 and 2010. This didn’t include money spent by EPA for their legal costs in connection with those rip-offs because EPA doesn’t keep track of their attorney’s time on a case-by-case basis.

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"The Tea Party has a right to feel cheated.

When does the Republican Party, put in the majority by the Tea Party, plan to honor its commitment to halt the growth of the Federal monolith and bring the budget back into balance"?

What are the going to do? come knock on your door and inspect your stove!!!!!! How much more are people going to take.

No, and once again, let me introduce a few facts, please, since none of you bothered to find out what the real story is.

What EPA is doing is updating the standards for new wood stoves and in particular new pellet stoves. Old stoves are extremely inefficient with the majority of the energy going up the chimney as smoke. Modern woodstoves preheat the incoming combustion air so that the smoke burns inside the stove and never makes it to the chimney. Old wood stoves are less than 10% efficient, where new stoves are 70-80% efficient. They emit almost no particulate matter and they don't smoke when operating.

Washington State has the highest standards for the production of woodstoves and pellet stoves, and this new EPA standard will bring the rest of the country up to Washington's standards. This means news stoves will have to meet the new standards, and these standards have absolutely no effect on existing stoves. Nobody is going to come and take your stove. Nobody is going to come and demand to inspect your stove. These standards will ONLY apply to newly manufactured stoves at some point after the standards are approved.

Our new stove uses half of the wood the old one did and we use it for primary heat in our house.

I'm fortunate I seldom ever need supplemental heat. The last two days I had the sliding doors open all day and in the winter, unless it's a cloudy day, I get full afternoon sun in the windows on the front of the house and solar heating. I can't remember the last time my fireplace was used.

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“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.” G Washington July 2, 1776

I'm fortunate I seldom ever need supplemental heat. The last two days I had the sliding doors open all day and in the winter, unless it's a cloudy day, I get full afternoon sun in the windows on the front of the house and solar heating. I can't remember the last time my fireplace was used.

We are talking Apples and Dinosaurs here.....there is a tremendous difference between a fireplace and a woodstove.....

We are talking Apples and Dinosaurs here.....there is a tremendous difference between a fireplace and a woodstove.....

That is mostly true but not entirely. I happen to have a very highly efficient fireplace made by Heatilator. Not inexpensive by any means but well worth the money especially if you live in a place where wood is there for the taking as I do.

We are talking Apples and Dinosaurs here.....there is a tremendous difference between a fireplace and a woodstove.....

True, just saying where I live I really don't need either.

We used to visit friends who lived up the coast of California in Eureka, they had a heatilator - like Bigun describes - though I'm sure now as modern as what they build today. We had another friend who had a cabin up on the coast above San Francisco, she had a wood stove. I still remember how cold it was until someone got up and fed wood into the stove to warm the place up in the morning. My husband normally "volunteered" when we were visiting her place. I imagine there is a lot of these old stoves out there.

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“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.” G Washington July 2, 1776

I has "chilling consequences" only if the stove owners/ users obey it. They shouldn't. I've become a good progressive. I won't obey any law, court decision, executive order, administrative reg. I disagree with. F*ck 'em!.

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